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How to Add Subtitles in Elmedia Player (With Troubleshooting Tips)

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Feb 14, 2023
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Elmedia Player supports embedded subtitles and external subtitle files in all languages available.

Subtitles Encoding Autodetection

Elmedia Player identifies the encoding of subtitles automatically. If it’s hard to read the encoding with a reasonable degree of accuracy, you will see a message asking to select the encoding manually.

Unknown Subtitle File Encoding

You should choose the proper item from the drop-down list of encodings and click the OK button. In case the encoding is chosen incorrectly, you won’t see the subtitles at all or there will be wrong symbols.

If you check the box Don’t ask me again, the message won’t be displayed to you anymore. In case the encoding of subtitles can’t be determined automatically, Elmedia will use the encoding selected in the Subtitles settings.

Subtitles Encoding

How to Search Subtitles Online in Elmedia Player

If you want to find a set of subtitles for a movie, Elmedia can search on OpenSubtitles.com. When you open it, right-click the player window and choose Subtitles – Search on OpenSubtitles.com. After the search is complete, this menu option will be replaced by Subtitles – Download from OpenSubtitles.com, where you can choose between any tracks that it found.

Search on OpenSubtitles.org
Download from OpenSubtitles.org

Once you select subtitles from the list, they will be downloaded and immediately displayed. Any selected subtitles can be saved (Subtitles – Save As) in the PRO version. 

Click Subtitles and then Save As

You can log in to your OpenSubtitles.com account with Elmedia Player. For this go to Preferences -> Subtitles -> Online Search -> Login to OpenSubtitles.com. Fill out the username and password fields and press OK.

Log in to your OpenSubtitles.org account
NOTE:  We recommend you register with OpenSubtitles.com and submit your login details to Elmedia Player. By this, you enable the app to search for subtitles without limits. Unregistered users can download 200 times per IP within 24 hours from the site. If you want to get more, log in with your OpenSubtitles account or sign in once again.

There is also a possibility to change the type of subtitles search. You can use one of the following types:

  • Auto. Elmedia searches for subtitles by hash. If there are no results available, the search is performed by a name of the file.
  • Name. Elmedia Player searches for subtitles by using only the filename. With this search, you can get more results than with the hash method but not all subtitles may suit your video file.
  • Hash. Elmedia Player takes a hash key from the video and uses it together with the file size for the search on OpenSubtitles.com. This method is considered the most correct as it delivers subtitles, even if you change your video name. But to make this method work the hash must be available in the OpenSubtitles.com database.

If you have Elmedia PRO, automatic subtitle search can be done upon opening any video track. This option has to be enabled from Preferences – Subtitles. You can also set 3 subtitle languages. Once you specify a language, Elmedia Player will search for the subtitles in this particular language. 

Subtitles Preferences

If the search didn’t give you any results, instead of the subtitles list available for the download, you will see Nothing found in the menu item Download from OpenSubtitles.com.

What To Do If You Can’t Add Subtitles in Elmedia Player - Troubleshooting

 

If subtitles are not loaded automatically:

  1. Make sure that the subtitles file is placed in the same directory as the video (restart the playback if you’ve just moved it).
  2. Try selecting a different encoding or changing the Autoload subtitles option in Preferences. Remember to restart the playback.
  3. Open the subtitles file (check the list of supported formats) manually in one of the following ways:
    • by selecting Subtitles → Subtitles Track → Add from File… or File → Open… in the main menu;
    • by selecting Subtitles → Add from File… from the context menu;
    • by drag and dropping the subtitles file on Elmedia’s window.

 

If subtitles are displayed incorrectly:

Make sure that the subtitles encoding is chosen correctly. Otherwise, you won’t see the subtitles at all or there will be wrong symbols. Check out if a suitable font is set. By default, Arial is used. This is an all-purpose font that allows displaying the majority of subtitles properly, including Chinese ones. But sometimes subtitles may be displayed incorrectly even if Arial is set. Try to set another font in Preferences and restart the playback.

NOTE:  In the Mac App Store versions of Elmedia Player, subtitles may not be loaded automatically because the app has restricted access to the file system. In this case, you should either specify the path to your videos via the General → Movie folder option in Preferences or drag and drop the respective directory onto Elmedia Player’s window or its icon in the Dock.